Liao Ji had imagined many possibilities for his "Second Playthrough."
But the one thing he hadn't imagined was that it would turn into a real-life version of the game Falling OL.
And he was born in a coffin, for fuck's sake?
Then, after kicking at it several times and finally managing to "rise from the coffin," he had to come face-to-face with a bunch of people who were obviously there to rob his "grave," staring at one another in stunned silence?
Could there be a more ridiculous transmigration?!
And there was more.
After a brief silence,
these shameless grave robbers had actually started pointing their guns at him, one by one, their faces filled with terror.
Liao Ji hadn't been born in America.
So he didn't have much experience with gunfights. All he felt was his hair standing on end, and his heart seemed to skip a beat.
Only then did Liao Ji truly understand the system's "friendly reminder" from the start of his Second Playthrough.
No saving, no restarting.
NMD!
So that's what it meant!
Fortunately—
"Put them down! All of you, put them down!" When Jason saw his underlings aiming their guns at Liao Ji, he was even more anxious than Liao Ji himself. His eyes widened as he started shouting.
He really had been badly frightened by the commotion caused by the "inheritance" at first.
But after everything returned to normal, as if nothing had happened, and Liao Ji did nothing besides sit up in the stone coffin, Jason's courage began to return.
Seeing the scar-faced man, who seemed to be the leader, berate them, the grave robbers finally lowered their guns.
Liao Ji breathed a sigh of relief.
At least they were civilized grave robbers.
But who could have guessed—
"If you damage the 'inheritance,' a thousand of you wouldn't be able to pay for it! No shooting! Whoever dares shoot, I'll be the first to kill him!" The scar-faced man sternly warned his underlings in the harshest tone he could manage.
Liao Ji: "..."
It was obvious that he really wanted to "protect" him.
However, Jason seemed to have forgotten that there was someone present who wouldn't obey his orders.
While Jason was focused on his underlings, Irin pressed her lips together as if she'd made up her mind, then suddenly began to move.
From Liao Ji's perspective, a petite figure darted out of the other group's ranks at incredible speed and, in just a few breaths, made it behind him.
She wore a tattered trench coat and an old hood. Pockets were all over her clothes. From the looks of it, she was probably a scavenger.
Before Liao Ji could analyze her any further,
he experienced, for the first time in his life, what it felt like to be hugged from behind by a woman.
This scene could have been nice.
Of course, Liao Ji thought it would have been even better if the scavenger girl behind him hadn't pulled out a gleaming, razor-sharp dagger and waved it in front of him.
"Nobody move! Throw down your weapons, then kick them over here!" Using Liao Ji as a bargaining chip, Irin mustered her courage and threatened Jason and the others.
She knew this was a huge risk.
It was practically certain death.
After all, the terrifying Corrupt Calamity that had poured from the stone coffin still haunted Irin. And this black-haired young man had come out of the coffin. Anyone with half a brain could tell he was definitely no ordinary person.
But Irin had no other choice.
At that moment, this was the only way she might be able to stay alive.
Fortunately, what happened next proved that her risky move had worked.
The black-haired young man didn't resist her, which was the biggest relief to Irin. And just as she'd expected, the Kalleva gang panicked, too.
"You fucking bitch!"
From Jason's roar, several decibels louder than before, it was clear that his anger had reached its peak.
But the scar-faced man really didn't dare act rashly. All he could do was rage helplessly at the female scavenger.
"You're finished! You're picking a fight with Kalleva! Get your filthy hands off the 'inheritance'!"
"I'm warning you, if you damage our 'inheritance' even a little, you'll die horribly. And your family, too—your mother, who's seriously ill at the settlement, won't have a chance of surviving either!"
Liao Ji could feel the scavenger pressed against him shudder noticeably when the scar-faced man mentioned her "seriously ill mother."
But after that, perhaps she felt there was no turning back anyway and decided to go all in.
So, instead of being cowed by the scar-faced man's threats, the female scavenger pressed herself even closer to the "inheritance" she was clinging to as her lifeline. She kept waving her dagger and ordering the man to let her go.
But from the look of the scar-faced man's face, Liao Ji could tell that was obviously impossible. Yet the man was also held back by the "inheritance" and couldn't do anything to the scavenger. So the two sides ended up locked in a standoff.
So—
Was this the wonderful start to his Second Playthrough?
He loved it already.
As soon as Liao Ji realized he'd transmigrated, the first thing he did after climbing out of the coffin was quickly check his body while quietly observing the situation.
The good news was that the game system still worked.
The bad news was that the Second Playthrough hadn't carried over the "protagonist's" stats. He was back at Level 1.
The good news was that the "wives" he'd raised in the previous playthrough had indeed carried over.
The bad news was that their portraits in the system were all gray and "untargetable."
Liao Ji didn't know why. Nothing like this had ever happened in the game. But at least his skill bar gave him a little relief.
[Holy Healing], [Dragon Blood Combustion], [Calamity Magnetic Pulse], [Annihilation], and finally, [Elf Protection].
As in many character-raising games, the player, as the "protagonist" in Falling, didn't have any skills of their own and couldn't level up by "killing monsters." The only way to grow stronger was by cultivating Corrupted.
In short, the stronger the Corrupted he raised, the more experience they could give back to him. And once a Corrupted reached a certain rank, the player could choose one of her abilities as a skill of their own.
The five abilities in the skill bar were the ones Liao Ji had carefully selected from them during his first playthrough.
They might not have been each girl's strongest ultimate move, but when combined, they made him, the "protagonist," into a versatile powerhouse who could handle just about any situation.
Even though he hadn't inherited his strength from the first playthrough, and the levels of these skills had all dropped to the starting Lv1, there was a difference between one Lv1 and another.
These were the Lv1 skills of the top-tier six-star characters he'd carefully raised, the highest-ranked Disaster Rank Corrupted. Using them to handle this little situation—
would be more than enough.
Before you continue